Project A Part (I and) II
Project A is actually two movies: Project A (here referred to
as Part I) from 1983 and Project A Part II from 1987. I watched them together
which turned out to be a very good idea as Part I gives a lot of back-story to
Part II.
We are in Hong Kong at the end of the 19th century, beginning
of the 20th century. In Part I Ma Yue Lung (Jackie Chan) is a sergeant in the coastguard
tasked with hunting pirates. Unfortunately, the pirates blow up the entire
fleet and so Ma’s detachment become policemen on land. The unit still becomes
involved in fighting pirates and after an endless series of martial arts brawls,
we get the big showdown on the pirate island.
Part II is far more convoluted. Instead of just pirates and
policemen, we have so many fractions it is easy to lose count, especially if,
like me you think some of the characters look very much like each other. Group
1 is a gang of pirates left over from the first movie. They want revenge on Ma Yue
Lung, though with little idea on how to go about it, they are more a comedic
element than a real player in the story. Group 2 is a revolutionary group
supporting Sun Yat Sen’s revolution in mainland China. This group consist
mainly of women, including the governor’s daughter Regina, Carina and Yesan
(Maggie Cheung) but also a few men including Li. Group 3 is a group of agents
of the Manchu rulers of China, lead by a man known as “the Prince” (Lau
Siu-ming). They are hunting revolutionaries but are also on foreign turf as
Hong Kong at this time is run by the British. Group 4 is the corrupt police
headed by Inspector Chun (David Lam). Police headquarters suspect all is not
good with this guy, so they place Ma in charge of one of Chun’s districts, Sai
Wan, a notorious hub of crime. All except one of the police officers are in the
pocket of the gangsters and Chun himself is working with both group 2 and 3 as
well as the local gangsters and see it as his mission to get Ma out of his way.
Group 5 is the gangsters in Sai Wan, led by Tiger Ow (Chan Wai-man). They put
up a mighty fight, but after the first chapter they are out of the story. Group
6 is Ma Yue Lung and with his group of four or five colleagues sent to Sai Wan.
They are up against all of the above.
If you are confused at this point, then I got it right. It
is very difficult to keep track of the characters here and who they belong to.
Where Part I is a straightforward affair, there clearly was an intention of
adding more plot to Part II. Well, they got plot all-right.
It would not be a Jackie Chan movie if we did not get a
substantial amount of martial arts and we do, in spades. I did not time it, but
my guesstimate is that at least 70% of the running time of Part I is brawling.
It is a bit less in Part II, but of the same very high quality. There is a
clownish element to the brawling that plays for comedy, but except for the over
the top sound effects, the antics of the fighters are kept only marginally
outside the realistic and not as in other Hong Kong movies full of flying superheroes.
Still, these are very acrobatic scenes, and it is obvious that the cast is
extremely highly skilled not just Jackie Chan. It is also noteworthy that Chan
takes a lot of punches as well and it is not every fight he wins, though it
often takes a handful of opponents at the same time to subdue him.
Both movies have a very strong comedic element. It is clear
that we are not supposed to take the movies that serious, but have a fun time
watching them. Where this comedy is often crude or even childish in Part I, Part
II tries to go beyond that. While the dialogue comedy is likely wasted on us Westerners,
it is more successful in the physical and especially in Part II with situational
comedy. There is an entire chapter in Part II where every group except group 1
and 5 are hiding in Yesan’s apartment. While there is very little fighting in
this part, it plays high on comedy as each group is trying to avoid the others.
This is supposed to be a tribute to the stateroom scene in Marx Brothers’ “A
Night at the Opera”. Another scene, the collapse of a wall around Chan is a reference
to Buster Keaton’s “Steamboat Bill”.
Part II is definitely an attempt to make a bigger and better
version of Part I, but I think it is only partially successful. The convoluted
plot and the situational comedy threaten to steal the picture from what anybody
is watching a Jackie Chan movie for, the brawling. That is always the problem
with sequels, and this is no exception. Still, you get plenty of what you came
for so if martial arts is your thing, there is no way around these two movies.
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